- Given that I don’t watch a single late-night talk show not on Comedy Central, I was not aware that Jay Leno was struggling so mightily in the 10 p.m. (Monday through Friday) time slot on NBC. "The Jay Leno Show" began on NBC in September, but ratings have apparently not been great and they have been even worse for Conan O’Brien, who took the wheel from Leno at 11:35 p.m. hosting "The Tonight Show." Now O’Brien I could have seen coming; dude’s brand of humor is not funny and he’s awkward, forced and irritating most of the time. Two months ago, Leno was asked a hypothetical question as to whether he would take back his old post if asked and he said yes. NBC would seem to be against such an idea in light of Leno’s poor ratings in recent months and reports began surfacing earlier this week that the network was considering canceling Leno’s show all together. But clearly Leno knew he was in for a challenge when he began his new show and didn’t seem to mind. "I get a certain amount of satisfaction from pounding my head against the wall," he said in an interview published last fall. "I'm not having a bad time at 10 o'clock now. I look at this as a job, and now I'm faced with a challenge, and it's a challenge I find difficult but interesting." NBC and viewers did not seem to be having as good a time as Leno and the network now plans to move him back to 11:35/10:35c and current Tonight host Conan O'Brien to 12:05/11:05c. Both Leno and O'Brien met with NBC executives Thursday about the future of the network’s late-night schedule. That change would set in motion a chain of events effecting two of the network’s other late-night personalities, Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly. Personally, I was shocked that Daly was still on television at all because I haven’t heard a peep from him in a long time, but whatever, With the schedule change, Leno would be on for only half an hour, while O'Brien would still host an hourlong program, pushing Late Night host Jimmy Fallon to 1:05/12:05c and putting the fate of Last Call with Carson Daly, which starts at 1:35/12:35c, in peril. The time changes will go into effect after the 2010 Winter Olympics wrap up on Feb. 28. In the two weeks leading up to the change, the Olympics will bump all three men from the air and give NBC a chance to finalize its plans. In the meantime, the Peacock attempted to smooth things over by issuing a statement saying it hoped to "find new ways to improve the performance" of Leno's show and that it remained " committed to keeping Conan O'Brien on NBC.” Leno joked about the situation in his monologue Thursday, while O’Brien did not address the matter on his show. I truly wish a had a stronger opinion on all of this, but seeing as I don’t watch any of these shows, this is all I can muster………
- Everyone, let’s welcome in the next sh*t-faced liar charged with running the biggest farce in all of sports, college football’s Big Crap Shoot, er, Bowl Championship Series. Bill Hancock took over as the new BCS executive director Thursday and immediately showed he has exactly what it takes to provide over this abortion of a system. His first move was to spout the requisite BCS party line about how the BCS is the best system and that a playoff at college football's highest level would lead to more injuries, conflict with final exams, kill the bowl system and diminish the importance of the regular season. "I know this is not completely popular, but I believe in it," Hancock said while his head was firmly planted up his ass. "I believe it is in the best interest of the universities. College football has never been better and I believe the BCS is part of that." Let’s look at those claims more closely, because clearly Hancock is a jack-off who is either brainwashed, stupid or just plain ignorant. More injuries? Umm, no. A playoff system would likely mean cutting the regular season down by at least one game and factoring in the bowl games that likely playoff teams would take part in, most schools wouldn’t have any more games on the schedule than they do now. Conflict with final exams? Hey jackass, every other division of college football has a playoff system and they manage just fine even though their academic standards are much higher than your average D-1 football factory. It would kill the bowl system? Try again. Either the bowls could be incorporated into the playoff system or they aren’t worth keeping, but either way, preserving the bowl system at the expense of a playoff system is a load of crap. And lastly, it would diminish the importance of the regular season? How, ass clown? This is by far the most indefensible of Hancock’s four points because how the hell do teams qualify for a playoff? BY HAVING A GREAT REGULAR SEASON! So where is this fool coming from anyhow? Well, Hancock is a longtime administrator in college athletics (a big part of the problem right there) who was hired by the conference commissioners in November to be a full-time leader for the Bowl Championship Series. During its 12 regrettable and forgettable years so far, the position of coordinator rotated among conference commissioners on a two-year basis. Now, Hancock will assume that role on a permanent basis. That means more moronic attempts at BCS justification like his claim that just because every other levels of college football use playoffs to decide their champions doesn't mean it would work in the Football Bowl Subdivision. "It works at that level, I can't deny it, but if you look attendance for those games, only Montana had decent attendance," he said. "Many teams didn't draw as well as they did in the regular season." That’s it? That’s all you have? Attendance at some D-1AA playoff games was a little low and you think that means people would show up for a Florida-Texas or Alabama-USC playoff game? Nice try, loser. Everyone knows your bogus system is designed merely to get the sport’s six major conferences and their universities paid and it does that very well. It is not a true championship system and it is not legitimate, so please stop trying to sell it to us as such…………
- John McCain may have gotten his ass kicked by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election and he may be an out-of-touch, cantankerous old dude who is preoccupied with boxing, but that doesn’t mean he’s backing down from a fight with Obama……one of McCain’s own creation in an attempt for a successful his 2010 re-election bid. McCain wants to keep his cushy position in the Senate for six more years and as such, he’s launching a new batch of radio ads designed to pander to the right-wing wack-a-doos who put up signs in their yards lamenting our nation’s descent into socialism and who are clutching oh, so tightly to their guns and daring the government to come and pry them from their cold, disillusioned hands. "President Obama is leading an extreme, left-wing crusade to bankrupt America," McCain says in one of the new radio ads. "I stand in his way every day. If I get a bruise or two knocking some sense into heads in Washington, so be it." How noble of you, Johnny Mac, positioning yourself squarely between the left-leaning socialist of questionable ethnic descent and a vision to ruin America. Another of the ads is even more comically terrible, playing on McCain's time as a POW during the Vietnam War and attempting to link that truly heroic act to his bitter crusade against Obama. "John McCain is leading the fight against President Obama every day, standing tall and outspoken, helping Arizona families," an announcer says in the second ad. "My lot in life has been to wage war against wrong," McCain chimes in during the second ad, "like today's massive spending at the worst possible time. Send me back to the Senate. We'll win that fight for Arizona." Even as the new ads hit the airwaves, McCain also touched up his supporters with an e-mail asking for donations to help keep the ads on air in Arizona. So who would dare challenge this great American hero for his Senate seat? That would be from former Arizona Rep. J. D. Hayworth, an outspoken foe of immigration reform measures championed by McCain who could challenge McCain in the upcoming primary. Arizona voters weren’t exactly enamored with Hayworth, who lost his bid for re-election to the House in 2006 and is now a radio talk show host in Arizona. He’s very popular with conservative voters, but he has yet to formally announce a bid to challenge McCain. Vague, veiled hints of the move have been dropped on his show, but stepping up to challenge a renegade, maverick visionary (and yes, I say that sarcastically) like McCain is not something to be undertaken lightly…………
- Palm took its turn making a big announcement at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show, unveiling upgraded versions of its Pre and Pixi smartphones that add video recording and the capability to create 3G mobile hotspots for laptops and other mobile devices. The two devices - the Pre Plus and the thinner Pixi Plus - will go on sale January 25 and will be available only on Verizon's wireless network. That can't be going over well at Sprint, which currently is the exclusive U.S. carrier for Palm's phones. Sounds like someone wasn’t happy with Sprint’s service, no? As with so many CES announcements this week, prices for the new phones were not announced. It’s good business; get people excited for the new phones and allow that excitement to build for a couple weeks before you squash it by revealing the insanely inflated prices you’re going to charge. Smartphone users will definitely enjoy the new mobile hotspot, an app that runs on Palm's webOS operating system and that can be downloaded as part of a Verizon data plan, but they will pay dearly for it, of that I am sure. That feature will be available for download beginning January 25 from the Palm App Catalog. The application will present customers with the option of creating a personal Wi-Fi cloud capable of sharing Verizon's 3G network with up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices. For people with four Wi-Fi enabled friends, it sounds like a good idea. The Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will be the first cell phones in the world to offer this capability, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein said. The new phones will also allow users to record videos and instantaneously upload them to YouTube or Facebook, along with a Flash 10 browser plug-in that will allow them to play movie trailers and other online videos. For the past six months, app testing for Palm has been in the private beta testing phase, but on Thursday the company opened its developer program to outside developers. With Palm's online store currently offering just 1,000 mobile applications, it has 100,000 or so to go before it can catch up with Apple's well-known App Store. "If you can imagine it, we're going to give you the tools and the access to build it," said Katie Mitic, Palm senior vice president of product marketing. Best of success in that endeavor, Palm, but I’m expecting you to come up short in the battle…………
No comments:
Post a Comment